;)
Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii:
While people have puzzled about their place in the universe for thousands of years, scientific cosmology dates from the 1920s, when Edwin Hubble discovered the expansion of the universe.
This course explores, in a generally qualitative fashion, the evidence of the creation of the universe in the Big Bang and the evolution of the universe with time. Various cosmological models that explain important observations about the universe's large-scale structure are compared to illustrate not only the science involved but how scientific research evolves when old models and theories are unable to explain new data.
The course concludes with an review of the factors that will determine the ultimate fate of the universe, that is, whether the universe will continue to expand and cool as it is doing today or whether it will eventually stop expanding and perhaps even contract until all matter comes together again...more
Democritus: ScienceDaily announced last year:
British scientists from the University of Cambridge and the University of Exeter discovered that the evolution of the Universe was much slower than previously thought.
The British team was the first to analyse Hubble's Ultra Deep Field (HUDF) images, which provide mankind's deepest optical view of the Universe.
The team viewed the number of star-forming galaxies and found that there were far less than expected. The rate at which new stars were born was a lot slower than formerly thought...
Democritus: Well, the evolution of the universe can become visible even for kids aged 8 and up at the NASA's Screensaver...;)
See also this textbook The Origin and Evolution of the Universe
The beginning of time has always been a basic question for any undergraduate student, and it is also a question that intrigues current researchers in astronomy. This text provides an introduction to current thought in this expanding field by presenting the excitement of the latest discoveries in the larger context of cosmic evolution...
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